


The Act of Creation (Revised)

by the_blue_ledger



Category: Original Work
Genre: Avalanches, Gen, LGBTQ representation, My best friend, Original work - Freeform, writer profile
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-10-06
Updated: 2017-10-06
Packaged: 2019-01-09 16:04:13
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,878
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12279858
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/the_blue_ledger/pseuds/the_blue_ledger
Summary: Caitlin Slatter is one of the best people I've ever known. This is a look inside their process, and the rhetorical situation in which they operate.





	The Act of Creation (Revised)

        Caitlin Slatter is from Santa Cruz, California. They love to write, play Overwatch, and geek out on Tumblr about the latest comic book movie. They have a dog named Socks who means more to them than I think they could say. Moonlight is their cat who seems almost immortal at this point. I met Cait through a friend. Our friendship started off when our mutual friend passed along my social media. Instantly, Cait and I were having very energetic discussions about our favorite media. Soon, our talks branched out into how alike we are. We both want careers that will help change people’s lives for the better. We both are very firm in our values and beliefs, and we both are a part of the LGBTQ+ community. Cait is very passionate about the LGBTQ+ community’s place in the world. The main rhetorical situation they operate within is the representation of diverse people in fantasy novels. Grant-Davie (2017) defines a rhetorical situation as, “a set of related factors whose interaction creates and controls a discourse” (p.487). This means that the rhetor, or the person speaking, wants to accomplish a goal by using their words

On October 22, 2017 Cait is publishing their first book. It’s called _Avalanches_ , and they’ve been working on it since they were fifteen. The summary is as follows:

        "Princess Rowan Branwen has little to fear from the outside world - her castle and her father have protected her whole life. Her life, and her throne, are secure. Until they are attacked by the treacherous Insurrection. Now on the run with Republica members Bale Winthrop and Adam Avalon, she must learn how to survive without the skills taught in court life. That means doing laundry in the woods, learning how to speak with the common folk, and avoiding Bale Winthrop's temper. And maybe saving the kingdom along the way."

        Cait’s book is operating within a very specific rhetorical situation, and a rhetorical situation has four important factors it can be broken down into. They are exigence, audience, constraints, and the rhetor (Grant-Davie, 2017).  Exigence is a problem that can be clarified through rhetorical discourse. Without the exigence, there would be no need for a rhetorical situation. In this instance, the exigence is the need for representation. The next factor, audience, is the people who will be affected and shaped by the discourse. The audience can also assist and help in solving the exigence. Additionally, there are constraints. They are the elements that can interfere with how the rhetor attempts to meet the exigence. Constraints can be either positive or negative.  Finally, rhetors are the people who are trying to address an audience to fulfill an exigence while facing constraints (Grant Davie, 2017). A rhetor can be the writer, but a work may have many rhetors. An example of this could also be a publisher.   

 _Avalanches_ is story that takes place in a fantasy world, but it’s not a just your regular fantasy, sci-fi book. It holds a cast of characters that are so colorful and diverse it actually matches the world around us. Representation of the LGBTQ+ community and people of color weighs on Cait. Growing up, they never saw themselves represented in the books they loved to read. As a non-binary queer person, Cait feels left out of a lot of media. This was a motivating exigence for Cait. Because of this exigence, Cait started creating their own stories. Around 4 th or 5th grade, they started writing their own fanfiction. Twilight was intriguing to them, so they wrote fanfiction based on that. Their childhood best friend, Laura was a big sponsor in this form of literacy. One would write a chapter of fanfiction on Cait’s laptop, and the other would take it home in order to revise and edit. This fanfiction eventually sprawled over 100,000 words, and it was posted on archiveofourown.org. This particular fanfiction site has a strong relationship with the LGBTQ+ community. Most of the stories posted here feature queer characters. The exigence Cait is meeting is the need for more diversity within the fictional genre of fantasy and sci-fi. For so long, people like Cait have felt very alone and different. Cait is attempting to change people’s perceptions about themselves and the people around them. It is a pretty big exigence to try to solve, so Cait is starting in their own little corner in the world. It’s just one author, but with many others like Cait the exigence will begin to be solved.

        Furthermore, the audience is very important to a rhetorical situation, and also to this particular rhetor. Cait Slatter says when they think of their audience they imagine, “anyone who is unsettled with their place in the world” (C. Slatter, personal communication, October 1, 2017). They feel like so much of the world and modern literature is saturated with darkness and edginess that they wanted to make something that showed how kindness can come out of a dark situation and triumph. They want the audience to walk away feeling better about the world around them, and like there is hope. Cait wants them to know that they have a place too. The audience are the people that can help the exigence be solved. Cait’s readers are meant to see that minorities deserve to have their stories told as much as anyone else. The audience will help solve the exigence by either feeling more accepted if they are a minority, or beginning to see that queer people and people of color are everywhere too. They should also see that they shouldn’t be treated any differently. Cait’s audience also impacts their writing. They use visuals in the way of their drawings to engage the youthful audience they are targeting. Most of their audience is interested in anime and manga. Therefore, their visuals incorporate cues from that genre. Also, the humor they use within their book reflects millennial humor. 

         However, there are some constraints in this rhetorical situation that the rhetor is facing. First and foremost, publishers are less likely to look at stories where there are diverse characters. They get less attention. People have preconceived ideas and prejudices against these stories. Cait has to find a way around this. They are mostly self-publishing Avalanches, and most of their other works have been shared online. When they are shared online, there is a group of people who will most definitely read it because they are hungry for media where they can see themselves. On the other hand, it can limit the audience because it’s not viewed as “mainstream.” As you can see in this situation, there are two sides to every coin. This constraint is positive because there is a guaranteed audience who will actually read what Cait has written. However, they are those who will try to prevent Cait’s works from getting into the hands of the people who would want to read it.

         Finally, we touch on the rhetor. Cait is motivated to write for this rhetorical situation both internally and externally. Internally, writing is a way to work through their feelings. In our interview Cait said, “writing is a very therapeutic experience for me” (C. Slatter, personal communication, October 1, 2017). Writing allows them a freedom to express their emotions. Externally, it is a way to contribute to their community, and also anyone who wants to read their work. It is specifically for their community to consume because it is about people like them. Cait loves creating something, and giving it away to someone. Their goal is to make people feel connected to something bigger than them, and that they aren’t alone in what they are going through. Writing and participating in this rhetorical situation has always been about community. They view writing as a form of gift-giving. It brings everyone together.

         Cait is working on a few independent projects right now. Lately, they’ve been less focused on writing books, and more on building universes to play in. They say that it is so much more fun to make everything from scratch than to borrow from someone else’s world. They said to me, “There is something beautiful in the act of creating” (C. Slatter, personal communication, October 1, 2017). I wholeheartedly concur. I can’t wait to see the waves Cait will make in their career. They possess a compassion for others that I haven’t really seen paralleled in anyone else. I know this will drive them to make great changes. I know they’ve already made a great change in my life.

 

References

Grant-Davie, K. (2017). Rhetorical situations and their constituents. In E. Wardle & D. Downs (Eds.), _Writing about writing: A college reader_ (3rd ed.) (pp. 487-509). Boston, MA: Bedford/St. Martin’s.

Slatter, C. (2017).  _Avalanches_. Santa Cruz, CA.

 

 

Revision Memo

            My writer profile revision looks very different from my first submitted draft. I revised a lot. I received a lot of very helpful feedback during my conference that I didn’t apply the first time, and feedback from my grade.

            I decided to get rid of some of the narrative about Cait’s journey with literacy and focus more on analysis of the rhetorical situation. Also, I explored why I was interested in Cait’s specific rhetorical situation.

            I decided to also include the summary of the book that Cait published called _Avalanches_. I felt like this added more to the multimodal aspect. It also brought a better understanding of the type of work Cait does. This brings more knowledge to the reader, and always for me to go into more depth about the rhetorical situation.

            Before, my profile was more of a narrative. It told stories about Cait’s experiences with literacy, but it didn’t really analyze genre or rhetorical situation. This wasn’t really fulfilling the essay prompt. In order to address this, I added parts talking about the audience of the rhetorical situation. I also did a better job of really digging into the exigence and describing what the terms meant. I hadn’t touched on the rhetor at all, so to remedy this I added a paragraph about it.

            Finally, I had a lot to work on to make this profile better. I got feedback that the structure of my profile was a little odd. I didn’t really get into the meat of the essay until halfway through it. To change this, I restructured and added more of the information to the introduction and the first few paragraphs. Additionally, I took out parts that weren’t relevant to the prompt. For example, I had a paragraph about one of Cait’s sponsors. However, this sponsor wasn’t really relevant to the rhetorical situation Cait contributes to.

            I chose to add more to the section on audience. I went into more detail about how the audience impacts the rhetor, and therefore the final product. In the previous draft, I just detailed who the audience was and what it looked like. Now, this draft showcases how the audience is an active participant in the rhetorical situation.

            Overall, this project took a lot of work and revisions to get to the point that is it at now. The peer review process, the conference, and the grade feedback were all very beneficial and allowed me to come at the project from a new perspective.

 

 

**Author's Note:**

> I've had so much fun with this essay, and I really feel like it has given me the chance to get to know one of my best friends better. Writing has been such a big part of their life, and the timing is perfect with their book coming out later this month. I almost felt like I was doing press for their new book release! I would like to send out a sincere thank you to Cait for humoring me with this project, and for giggling through all the interview questions with me.


End file.
